Republican Sen. Pete Wilson officially won the governorship of California on Nov. 6, defeating Democrat Dianne Feinstein by 266,707 votes out of more than 7.5 million cast, a victory margin of 3.5%, Secretary of State March Fong Eu announced Friday. Republican Dan Lungren edged Democrat Arlo Smith for state attorney general by just 28,906 votes in one of the closest statewide elections in recent California history. Smith actually topped Lungren in the vote cast at the polls Election Day.

Absentee ballots made the difference for Pomona Councilwoman Nell Soto, who won reelection Tuesday despite losing among voters who cast their ballots at the polls. Soto defeated teacher Bob Jackson by a vote of 782 to 716 even though she was trailing Jackson by 74 votes before absentee ballots were counted late Tuesday night. More than one-fourth of the votes in the election were cast by absentee ballot.

County workers began tabulating about 50,000 outstanding absentee ballots from the Nov. 6 election Friday, after lawyers for Democratic attorney general candidate Arlo Smith dropped their demand that the vote count be halted. County Registrar of Voters Donald Tanney said his staff would immediately begin processing the ballots in the same manner they previously were tallied. Officials hoped to have the count completed by Tuesday and certified the following week.

Stanislaus County, which had the highest absentee voting rate in California in the November, 1988, elections, wants to conduct the next general election almost entirely by mail. The unusual proposal, expected to be approved by county supervisors, calls for closing 210 of the 230 polling places and using mail-in ballots instead. At the remaining 20 polls, voting machines would be replaced on Election Day with drop-off boxes where late voters could deposit completed forms.

A record 3.2 million Californians have requested absentee ballots for Tuesday's election, which could leave the results of close races throughout the state in doubt for days or even weeks. More than 1 million of those absentee ballots, or nearly 10% of the 12 million votes expected in California, will not be counted on election night, according to county election officials surveyed by Associated Press.

California Secretary of State March Fong Eu on Friday asked City Atty. James K. Hahn to investigate what she said is a faulty absentee ballot form distributed on behalf of the campaign for the Los Angeles pro-drilling measure, Proposition P. Eu, the state's top election official, said in a letter to Hahn, "I believe that (there) is evidence sufficient to support a successful prosecution."

An Orange County judge Monday denied Democrat Arlo Smith's last-ditch effort to invalidate more than 1 million absentee ballots crucial to last month's election for state attorney general, which GOP candidate Dan Lungren won by a scant 0.2% margin. The decision removes the last cloud hanging over Lungren's apparent victory in time for the secretary of state's certification of the election, scheduled for Dec. 14.

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley responded to criticism from local registrars of voters Thursday by withdrawing his plan to mail 3.75 million letters to registered voters encouraging them to become permanent absentee voters. The decision comes after Shelley's office spent $230,000 to print the letters. Some county registrars were unhappy with the planned mailing because they thought it would duplicate their efforts to encourage absentee voting.

If you're an old-fashioned type who thinks voting is something you do on Election Day, think again. By the time polls open Nov. 8, up to one-third of all Texas voters will have cast their ballots--at flea markets, stores and in church parking lots. In California, an estimated one in five voters will vote before Election Day, without ever setting foot in a polling place. And in two Washington counties, nobody will go to the polls on Election Day.

A torrent of requests for absentee ballots has flooded the Orange County registrar of voters office, demonstrating high citizen interest in the June 27 Measure R election and setting the stage for a possible record absentee vote. The number of requests processed through Tuesday already exceeds the total filed in any recent Orange County special election.